Let’s Cash in the Biggest Clunker
August 19th, 2009Who Will Give me $4500 for a Clueless Ex-Bagman?
The other day I sent out my first hurricane email, to a friend on the west coast. The Florida west coast, I should add. I referred to The Cone of Death. We were in it at the time. One of the recent storms was headed toward Florida, and the weather nerds always put up maps with big cones over the areas where the hurricanes are likely to go. I sent a clarification later, changing “Cone of Death” to “Cone of Certain Death.”
That storm fell apart, but now we are having hurricane weather anyway. By “hurricane weather,” I mean we’re getting annoying winds and intermittent rain, day in and day out.
I always love it when a storm falls apart or heads out to sea. I wish I could say I love it because it means no one will suffer, but I’ll be honest. That’s only part of the reason. I also love it because it disappoints hippies. Every year, Al Gore’s ridiculous predictions are proven wrong by the mildness of our hurricane seasons, and there are people out there who find it unbearable.
Maybe I’m just as bad as they are. It bothers me when the stock market rallies. I don’t want the economy to turn around until our immune system kills the socialist flu. If Obama’s Marxist approach fails to prevent a recovery, everyone on the left will say he saved us, and the swing voters in the middle will believe it, because they are the most gullible, least informed people on earth. Then we’ll get more socialism, and the economy will tank, and we’ll be told the answer is even more socialism, and before you know it, we’re Italy or Greece or England.
I still think this is where we’re headed. If we don’t discard this anti-Christian, anti-Jewish leader, and if we don’t change our ways, we have every reason to believe God will stop blessing us. Losing wealth is bad, but if it drives you to church, it’s a small price to pay, and God has a habit of restoring things once we turn to him.
It’s shocking how bad Obama is for Christians. He’s as great an enemy as the unborn have ever had; he believes in letting them die alone on cold tables after incompetent doctors try to kill them. He is very open about favoring barbaric Muslim regimes in their dealings with Israel, the only civilized nation in the Middle East. He wants to tax our tithes and offerings and alms, which, many of us believe, are essential to our blessings. He wants to replace voluntary giving, which is a pillar of Christianity and Judaism, with coerced giving. Men of God will no longer administer the money. Instead, it will go to twisted leftist hacks who will decide which behaviors they want to reward. The givers will not be blessed, because blessings come from righteousness, and there is nothing righteous about having your money taken by force. There is no altruism or piety in it. Nothing worth rewarding.
I will never understand why Jews voted for a man who attended an anti-Semitic church for twenty years. Someone explain that to me. I guess the explanation is obvious. Self-hatred. “Let’s make the Gentiles love us. Let’s give away more land; God isn’t real, and even if he was, we know better than he does. Let’s end black anti-Semitism by electing a black President. If we vote for a secular messiah, people will finally start loving us, and we won’t need to support a refuge in the desert.”
It’s a good approach. It worked great in Germany and Russia and Poland and Spain and Portugal.
I guess I should be more amazed that Christians voted for him. There’s a prominent Catholic out there who runs around debating, trying to prove it’s okay to vote for someone who supports partial-birth abortion and withholding care from live abortion victims. Many Christians fail to realize that we are never going to right the world’s evils through purely human effort, and they can’t see the clear Biblical division between government and religion. In the Bible, God discouraged the Jews from having a secular government in addition to the church, because he knew the church and government would be at odds, and he knew the government would be unpleasant to live under. Now we have a world where people think voting liberal pleases God, because liberals like giving money away. Never mind the fact that a huge percentage of people who vote for liberals do so because they will RECEIVE other people’s money, which is taken away by means of the threat of fines and jail time. I’m not sure how that works out to be unselfish.
There are Christians out there who will eagerly vote for 90% tax brackets for the productive, while refusing to donate 10% to the church. You have to wonder what the world would be like if people tithed and gave offerings. Would government charity exist? There would be little need for it. Right now, we give less than 2% of our income to the church. The figure should be more like 15%. That’s a huge amount of money. Think of what it could do.
Our selfishness created a vacuum, and socialism arose to fill it. And–wonder of wonders–socialism has always denied the existence and power of God, often making Christianity a crime. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I can’t believe I helped create this problem. I used to give, and then someone told me I was already donating to the world’s largest charity via income tax, and I believed it, and I cut back. What a mistake. I cheated God, others, and myself.
How misguided leftism is. Right now, we’re taking nice vehicles, destroying the motors (40% of their value), and parting them out or crushing them. None of those cars will go to the poor. Many would have gone to charity. The government is giving the owners money taken from other taxpayers. In actuality, the immediate source of the cash is foreign creditors, like the Chinese government. Not only will we have to pay for other people’s cars; we’ll be charged interest. Meanwhile, there are people all over the US who have no transportation. What a perfect storm of stupidity. Wealth destroyed. Debt increased. And people are happy about it!
I can’t root for the economy while we’re doing such stupid things. It’s like hoping your teenage son makes good money selling dope.
When God called us sheep, I think he was flattering us. Surely no other mammal has judgment as bad as ours.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:22 AM
The decline of our society as we know it. You can see it circle down the drain.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:05 PM
[…] The Hog is no longer doing politics. It bothers me when the stock market rallies. I don’t want the economy to turn around until our immune system kills the socialist flu. If Obama’s Marxist approach fails to prevent a recovery, everyone on the left will say he saved us, and the swing voters in the middle will believe it, because they are the most gullible, least informed people on earth. Then we’ll get more socialism, and the economy will tank, and we’ll be told the answer is even more socialism, and before you know it, we’re Italy or Greece or England. […]
August 19th, 2009 at 12:05 PM
Giving the poor a car that runs less than 15 MPG is like buying them an dog that lives on Steak
August 19th, 2009 at 12:07 PM
You’re right. It’s much better for them to go without transportation. And it would also be stupid to sell the cars and give the money to charity. Why didn’t I see this earlier?
August 19th, 2009 at 1:46 PM
The ecology nuts don’t seem to comprehend that making a whole new car (mining the materials, parts manufacture, shipping, etc., etc.) is more of a load on poor Mother Gaia than keeping an existing one running for the remainder of its days – no matter how poor the gas milage.
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And the poor will be disproportionately hurt by this and all the other socialist malarky the Ds are puching on us (the only “saving grace” is that more people will be pushed into poverty so as to promote egalitarionism – we’ll all be destitute, but equally destitute – except the people running the party)
August 19th, 2009 at 1:50 PM
When I was a student, I had a Buick Electra 225 convertible with a 455. It got 17.5 miles per gallon, highway. City…don’t even ask. Served my needs well. A reliable, roomy, safe gas guzzler can be a real blessing, depending on how much you drive.
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As far as I’m concerned, Gaia is a disposable diaper.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:28 PM
One unexpected (by Obie) side effect of the clunker program is people are using the credits to buy SUV’s and vans, This is because Americans, not being Obie, are smart enough to realize that when he costs them their houses, they can’t move the whole family into a Yaris or Smartcar…
BTW, somehow I lost track of your blog for awhile. Only just heard of your trials with your sister. Your family will be in my thoughts and prayers.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Small error Steve, cash for clunkers trade-ins cannot be parted out, the whole works goes to the crusher.
Not only that but this whole Socialist mess is falling apart, less than 2% of dealer vouchers have been paid. The beaurocracy is also denying claims for picayune paperwork errors.
As for po’ folks driving cars gettin less than 15 MPG. Most po’ folks aren’t quite as stupid as ErikZ and can ration their driving themselves. What’s worse, driving a gas hog to work, or not going to work?
Gerry N.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:37 PM
That’s what I thought, until I read that dealers were only required to “disable” the cars, and that they were doing this by wrecking the engines.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:00 PM
This is what happens when you consult polar bears for advice.
August 19th, 2009 at 7:41 PM
The market forces are so exquisityly relentless that they will try to flow around these stupid barricades and people will buy what serves them best. I love it. I suppose there is a place where the market will fail but I still love it.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:27 PM
Why would the poor go without transportation?
Now, if they’re getting a free car for a charity organisation, it’ll be something that gets decent MPG.
Also, just because you’re poor, you’re lucky to get free stuff. Not entitled to it.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:31 PM
They would go without transportation because Obama crushed it. Going without stuff is pretty much what being poor means.
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“Now, if they’re getting a free car for a charity organisation, it’ll be something that gets decent MPG.”
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Are you saying a poor person with no car would turn down a van or a big sedan? Not on my planet.
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“Also, just because you’re poor, you’re lucky to get free stuff. Not entitled to it.”
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Which is why they would be thrilled to get free “clunkers” that aren’t econoboxes. You seem to be suggesting that because the poor aren’t entitled to free cars, it’s okay to destroy cars instead of giving them to the poor. I’ll bet you wouldn’t want to run the crushing machine in front of a bunch of poor families.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:33 PM
You mean…there’s no good way to do bad things??
August 19th, 2009 at 10:02 PM
Adolescent polar bears who know everything.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:33 AM
Well, once “saving” the environment becomes more important than helping the poor, this is what you get.
People are expendable. Rocks and trees? Gotta do everything we can for THEM.
You can’t kill polar bears, nesting terns, spotted owls or harp seals. But babies? Yeah, they are a woman’s choice.
How many millions have died from Malaria and other diseases because we banned DDT? To save the bald eagle.
Nucking futs.
August 20th, 2009 at 6:04 AM
How typical. Somebody who is not poor feels he can dictate to the poor what they should have, a higher mileage vehicle (people are giving those up in droves, I guess). That statement in itself denotes a particular political party preference.
As if the poor can’t figure it out for themselves.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:08 PM
My wife has a friend who runs an organization that is devoted to accepting older cars as donors and then has them fixed (if need be) and gives them away to destitute families/individuals. As of now, no one is providing any cars because of the C-for-C program, leaving dozens and dozens of needy families without transportation they would otherwise have.
If you get the government out of the way altruism will take care of most, if not all, of societal woes.